by Sutapa Chattopadhyay[1]

[i]t’s increasingly difficult to define what, substantively, it means to be a thinker of the Left

(Castree and Wright 2005: 6)

Not too long back I read two articles on anti-austerity protest and Quebec student strikes that were published by ClassWarU, and a few others, mostly by activist student scholars. Almost all the articles and interviews that have been published so far in this website pertinently point out the urgent need to employ alternative pathways to connect people, participation and place. There is little to no doubt that the question of happiness and wellbeing is overwhelmingly difficult to answer, as it is ensnared by the laws of neoliberal capitalist accumulation, under continuous and progressive expropriation to the creation of hierarchies and hegemonies (through continuous division of labor along sex, race, class, religion, education, and nationality) to constant production of all forms of social exclusion. The poor and middle classes have shouldered the heaviest burdens of the global political obsession with austerity policies over the past five to six years. In the United States, budget cuts have forced states to reduce education, public transportation, affordable housing, health and other social services. In Europe, welfare cuts have driven some severely disabled individuals to fear for their lives. Austerity is still the order of the day and the struggle against austerity is an all-class war orchestrated in plazas, universities, parks, streets, squares, or any public places that we can think of. This article holds my deep reactions on academic exploitation at the crossing point of other kinds of exploitation that have burgeoned as a response to neoliberal capitalism. Continue reading →